Unopposed

There's naturally been plenty of talk about the B.C. HST now that the petition drive to repeal it is officially underway. But perhaps more interesting than the expected fervor of the petition's supporters is the complete lack of anybody making an effort to oppose it:

(T)he truck loggers didn't sign up to oppose Bill Vander Zalm's repeal-the-tax petition that began this week. Not a single entity has, and that means supporters will be limited in what they can do to sell the HST for the next three months even if they chose to get into the act now. That’s because under the Recall and Initiative Act, advertising on the HST petition is strictly controlled during the petition period.

Jock Finlayson, chief economist of the B.C. Business Council, was the leading proponent of an HST in B.C. and the de facto head of the pro-HST coalition last fall.

The coalition hasn’t met since the fall and the contract with the PR firm hired to help it has lapsed.

Of course, the Globe and Mail notes that HST supporters are trying to argue that they don't need to bother doing anything in response to the petition based on the Campbell Libs' devotion to pushing ahead. But it's rather odd to count on the sitting government as one's lone ally in the face of a petition process designed to give a voice to citizens the chance to override the decisions of elected officials.

That leaves the possibility that the HST supporters are instead counting on the petition drive to fail on its own terms - and the statutory requirements are definitely onerous for the initiative's supporters. But the more HST proponents send the implicit message that they can afford to ignore or belittle the public's outrage, the more likely it may be that the HST petition drive will be the first to reach the standards to get passed.